1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adjustable camera lens assembly. More particularly, the present invention relates to a camera lens assembly configured in such a manner that it can automatically adjust the focal length of a lens in an optical unit mounted to a digital camera, a mobile communication terminal or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent advances in the field of photography, which include improvements in digital camera manufacturing techniques, have brought about the advent of a micro-sized/light-weighted camera lens assembly, as it is now possible to mount a camera to a mobile communication terminal. Accordingly, a mobile communication terminal having an optical lens and a camera unit mounted thereon has been widely used.
In earlier stages of digital camera manufacturing techniques, when a camera was mounted to a mobile communication terminal, the level of performance of a camera mounted to a mobile communication terminal at that time was considerably lower than that of a digital camera commercialized today. For example, while performance of a popular-type digital camera was 4 mega-pixel grade, the performance of a camera mounted to a mobile communication terminal was usually about 3 hundred thousand-pixel grade and performance of a camera mounted to an advanced terminal was no greater than 1 mega-pixel grade.
Recently, a camera generally having about a 1 mega-pixel grade has been able to mounted to a mobile communication terminal in the case of an advanced terminal, a 3 mega-pixel camera comparable to a popular-type digital camera is mounted, and a mobile communication terminal mounted with a camera having performance of 7 or more mega-pixel grade has been successfully commercialized. In this way, with the improvement in the precision of a manufacturing technique for a camera lens assembly, it has become possible to improve the camera function for a mobile communication terminal so that the pixel grade approaches that of standalone cameras.
Although, a mobile communication terminal has gradually made inroads into the digital camera market with the improvement in the precision of performance and a manufacturing technique for a camera lens assembly, there are still a number of limitations to raising the performance of a camera mounted to a mobile communication terminal up to the same level as a standalone digital camera, particularly when considering that the main functions of a mobile communication terminal are the securement of a communication function, as well as portability.
Even a general compact-type digital camera is basically provided with an optical zoom function and an auto-focusing function, and some kinds of digital cameras are provided with a handshake correction function. However, it is difficult to provide an optical zoom function, an auto-focusing function and a handshake correction function in a camera lens assembly mounted to a mobile communication terminal because the main functions (such as the communication function and portability) must be preferentially considered for the design of a mobile communication terminal.